


Daniel Grieves

by Annie D (scaramouche)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, M/M, Morbid thoughts, Mourning, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-15
Updated: 2004-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 19:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/pseuds/Annie%20D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deathfic, the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daniel Grieves

**Author's Note:**

> Contains references to "Fragile Balance".

Ten large black silver-ring files. Twenty-two regular-sized silver-ring files. Three technical flight manuals, two astronomy reference books, one thick notebook with a few pages ripped out, a half a dozen of new test pads and a reasonably good thesaurus with post-its marking certain pages.

And that’s not even starting on the paper and plastic folders of vast and varying sizes.

Daniel sits on the floor in Jack’s office, his eye being the only one that can spot the logic amidst the mess spread around him.

Two watches, plus a set of new batteries. One toothbrush, with two spares still in their plastic covers. One brush, two combs – the smaller white one missing a few teeth. One razor, with one spare set of new blades. That’s Jack, always working his way around inconveniences, big or small.

Two calendars. Four posters. Five framed certificates. Four framed medals. And in a thin plastic holder, eighteen standard size photographs, and two enlarged photographs.

Daniel’s holding one of the more recent photos in his hands. It’s one of the team – including Jonas – at a gathering at Hammond’s house, and they’re all smiling at the camera. Even Teal’c. Daniel doesn’t remember exactly when it was taken, but it must’ve been within the past few months. Strange, that. He doesn’t even remember who took the photo.

It’s the team, relaxed in each other’s company, making it almost the perfect family photo.

Daniel’s fingers are slow and deliberate, and the pieces fit in neatly with the rest of the junk in the rubbish bin.

  


* * *

Daniel doesn't mean to hate. He knows that he’s a patchwork of contradiction, holding in one hand the optimism of giving others the second chance the prove themselves, and in the other hand the tightly-wound ability to hate those he deem worthy. He sees a pattern, though. The loss of his parents, the loss of Sha're… A child can hate, but a child's memory is fleeting. A mourning husband can hate, but vengeance has clear focus upon those whom have done him wrong.

He really doesn’t mean it.

He knows Sam’s hurting as well. He appreciates Teal’c’s quiet strength. He understands Jonas’ bewilderment in figuring out the appropriate reaction. He knows that he has no right to turn to hate, but it’s the easiest outlet of them all. He won’t think of the reasons, because thinking gives him a headache, and he hates getting headaches, so he tries to stop thinking.

He hates Jake, though. Hates him so much it frightens him. He hates that the copy – the _fake_ – gets to live on, filling the emptied shoes with nauseating ease. Jake insists that that isn’t his intent, but Daniel doesn’t care. The others insist that it’s only for the knowledge and experience that Jack brought to the program, and that only makes Daniel hate them, too.

Jack is irreplaceable.

Jake is replacing him.

* * *

  
Jake doesn’t look him in the eye, even when he talks to him. Daniel, however, stares straight at the young face that lacks any sort of distinguishable worrylines or scars, wondering how something so familiar could be so loathsome.

He wonders why Jake really thinks he’s fooling anybody. So he changed the name, tried to change the style, and refused all association with his DNA-of-his-DNA parent. In all honesty Daniel really does see that it’s simply another person wearing a Jack-shaped suit, but it doesn’t change the fact that _they_ don’t. _They’ve_ put all the spotlights on their newest star.

The worst are the Asguard, who don’t seem to think that there’s any difference. Lucky for us that we had a spare lying around, eh?

Ten minutes into the briefing and Daniel has to excuse himself to throw up in the men’s room.

* * *

  
Then there’s Jack house.

Daniel had no idea that he was in Jack’s will at all, so when the lawyers came to him the day after, his first reaction is that he’d been betrayed. He doesn’t even have a will of his own. In fact he’d never even _considered_ making one since he’d never felt he had anything important to be passed on. And yet there it was… Jack had somehow gone around him and made one.

He thinks of Jack, writing the will. He thinks of Jack thinking of him as he writes it up. He thinks of Jack, smiling at the thought of surprising him when he discovers the will’s contents. He also thinks of Jack thinking melancholy thoughts of having to leave him at all.

Once Daniel gets the house, he tears it apart.

He spends days unearthing its elements – it is, after all, the sanctuary of all things Jack O’Neill. He peels it apart, layer by layer, cataloguing all details with the memory associated only with those passionate to their subject. It is a spin of the archaeological dogma – putting the pieces together to pay tribute in humble study of what had once been. It is simply Daniel being Daniel.

* * *

There are pictures, countless more than he’d expected. Young Jack, high school Jack, hockey Jack, soldier Jack…

Jack as a husband, as father…

Daniel never asked about Charlie. It was the same blind spot in their relationship bestowed upon Sha’re – not because they were ignoring the past, but because they knew the importance of laying the past to rest so to move on the future. Daniel stares at the pictures of the boy that’d so obviously inherited his father’s charms, and feels that inexplicable prickling in his gut.

Charlie had earned Jack’s love simply by _existing_, and he went and repaid it by shredding what was left of Jack’s soul.

It’s a horrible thought, Daniel knows, so he tries not to think it anymore.

* * *

  
A slip of hand in the kitchen one day, and Daniel finds himself fascinated by the trickle from a sliver in his wrist. He counts the slow drops onto the floor, marvelling at how easy it can be, and suddenly he’s once again thinking of Jack. He thinks of Jack, cold metal in his hands, on his knees in a child's shrine, and Daniel finally sees what he never could before. It’s like a cloak tugging at his shoulders, whispering promises of freedom and damnation. It's the most horrible sort of beauty.

He wonders how Jack was able to move on, for Daniel, for Charlie, for the friends he'd lost, for the things he'd done. Jack, who was all tainted and flawed and perfect. _Jack_, who'd somehow found the strength to live despite the bogeymen under his bed. For a brief moment Daniel thinks that maybe it was because Jack didn't love enough, but he discards that thought -- no one loves as freely as Jack does. Almost as freely as Daniel is able to hate. And he feels the shame, because he'd never understood the strength Jack had within him.

He’d never thought it possible to love Jack more than he did. So it seems the universe really does have a thing for constantly proving Daniel Jackson wrong, because there it is. He does. Love Jack more, that is.

* * *

Jack's tombstone feels like cold grain to the touch, and Daniel sees it for the insult that it is. It's a blind marker among hundreds, bearing only a name, a date and an acknowledgement of his uniform, but nothing more. There is no evidence of the things he'd done, or of how he'd had touched greatness, or how he'd given his life for a purpose way beyond anything he’d imagined.

Sentimentality has its time and place, and Daniel cannot agree to sanction such a heartless display.

So he bestows it the same courtesy he gave Sha’re’s resting place, and never sees it again.

  


* * *

  
Over dinner, Teal’c calls him a coward. The words are like a slap across the face, forcing Daniel to confront thoughts he’d rather not have.

Teal’c tells him that this is not what Jack would have wanted. He would want Daniel to move on and live the rest of his life the best that he can, and he’d be dissappointed at Daniel’s current choice of actions.

Daniel, however, has doubts.

It had been so easy to read Jack. He had been an open book written in a secret language only Daniel could understand. He'd found all the answers just by looking at Jack, but he doesn't have that anymore, and it's like walking blind. Things that were achingly clear before are no longer certain.

Would Jack be magnanimous enough to want Daniel to move on with his life? Jack was a selfish bastard, after all..

So he considers many things. Retirement. Changing to another team. Asking really nicely to join the glowy squid things again.

What would Jack want? He’d want Daniel to live. To get over him and move on.

Daniel figures that he’ll be able to, no problem. After all, practice makes perfect.

 


End file.
